Editing UFOs An International Scientific Problem (section)

=== Case 2. Cressy, Tasmania, October 4, 1960 ===

A half-dozen years after Case 1, and halfway around the globe from Quebec,
a well-documented sighting bearing a certain resemblance to it (a number of
small objects around a larger one), was made by two reliable witnesses.
Rev. Lionel B. Browning, an Anglican clergyman, was admiring a rainbow as
he and his wife looked out a window of the Cressy, Tasmania, rectory. It
was 6:10 p.m., the sun was just setting in the west. A curtain of rain con-
cealed Ben Lomond ridge off to their east and extended through the southeast
and to their south. Mrs. Browning suddenly called Rev. Browning's attention
to what they both first interpreted as a large aircraft emerging from a rain-
curtain nearly due east. Although the Brownings never felt entirely sure of
the range of this object, they estimated it at perhaps 3 miles, since the
object seemed to be over an estate ’known to be at that distance. Their first
guess that it was an aircraft was next modified to an aircraft stalling, since
the speed of the object, crudely scaled from the subjective size-and-distance
estimates, seemed to be not much over 50-60 mph.

I had an opportunity to interview Rev. Browning last summer and verified
contemporary press accounts10. He and Mrs. Browning quickly noted that the
cigar-shaped object .seemed to lack wings, had several vertical bands or
ridges on its gray-colored surface, and some odd protuberance on its "forward"
end. They watched it glide northward for about a minute before it suddenly
stopped in mid-air and hovered over the ground at an altitude they very roughly
guessed at 400-500 feet. Then, from out of the rainclouds farther east, there
came about a half-dozen much smaller objects, of perceptibly discoid form, the

Brownings stated. These smaller discs moved much faster than the larger cigar-
shaped object, at speeds that Rev. Browning stated to me might have approached
jet-aircraft speed. He stressed that these smaller objects "skipped like
stones on water", a phraseology that I learned from associates of Rev. Browning
did not originate from any previous study of UFO reports, since, prior to that
October, 1960 sighting, Rev. Browning not only ignored UFO reports but took a
very negative view of the authenticity of most such reports.

The Brownings next saw the discs seem to take up a "formation" around the
cigar-shaped object, which had been hovering motionless during the approach
and formation of the smaller objects (whose diameter the Brownings guessed at
perhaps some tens of feet, in contrast to the perhaps tenfold larger length
of the cigar-shaped object). Then, the entire assemblage started moving
towards the south, back into the rainshower out of which the large object had
first been seen emerging, whence the group was lost from sight, terminating
the observation after a total elapsed time estimated by the witnesses as about
two minutes, perhaps as long as three minutes.

These objects were illuminated by the setting sun, and Rev. Browning
emphasized to me that there was a distinct difference in tone between the dull
gray of the larger object and the shiny, metallic luster of the smaller disc-
like objects.

The Brownings, after a brief discussion of this event (which by then they
construed as "some Russian devices"), called the nearby airdrome to report it,
which ultimately brought it to the attention of the RAAF. I have recently had
a letter from the RAAF officer who did the interrogation of the Brownings.

Wg. Cmdr. G. L. Waller states in his communication that the Brownings "im-
pressed me as being mature, stable, and mentally alert individuals who had no
cause or desire to see objects in the sky other than objects of definite form
and substance." That impression is attested to by many others who know the
Brownings personally, as I established by direct queries in Hobart and
Melbourne last year.

My questions as to the ultimate public explanation which the RAAF put on
the sighting elicited somewhat bitter comment from Rev. Browning, comment that
I later found elaborated in press clippings made available to me by the
officers of a very creditable private UFO group in Melbourne (Victorian
Flying Saucer Research Society). The Directorate of Air Force Intelligence,
RAAF, made official explanation early in 1961: "The phenomena was the result
of the moonrise associated with meteorological conditions at the time of the
sighting. On 4th October, 1960, moonrise (full quarter) at Cressy would have
been visible shortly after 1800 hours and in an ESE direction. The objects
apparently seen were near the sky-line in an easterly direction. The presence
of "scud" type clouds, moving in varying directions due to turbulence in and
around the rain squall near which the objects were sighted, and the position
of the moon or its reflections, produced the impression of flying objects."
Such an "explanation" has a curiously familiar ring to anyone who has
studied large numbers of USAF "explanations" of UFO sightings. One can
quickly establish that the moon was full on the date of the Cressy sighting
and that it would have risen not in the ESE but a few degrees north of east.
And, still worse for the official explanation, there was not only a dense
rain storm obscuring all the eastern sky as seen from the Cressy rectory,
but the highest mountain range of Tasmania lay behind those dense clouds to
further obscure the just-rising full moon. (Ben Lomond, summit 6160 ft,
lies to ENE of Cressy, and the ridges extend off to south and north from that
summit point.) From my own viewpoint, as one interested in atmospheric
optics and in unusual refractive and reflective anomalies, the official sug-
gestion that "scud" subject to turbulent motions could (had the moon not been
wholly obscured by rain and mountain) be optically distorted into anything
remotely resembling the phenomena reported by the Brownings seems entirely
out of question. (Because USAF explanations have many times asserted, as
has also [[D H Menzel|Dr. D. H. Menzel]] in his writings on UFOs11, that the sun and the moon
can be "reflected" off sides or tops of clouds, it may be well to state that nothing in decades of meteorological optical observations supports such a
notion, save for the phenomenon of the "undersun", which involves specular
reflection off tabular ice crystals falling in completely non-turbulent air,
and visible only from an aircraft or elevated vantage point. Sun and moon
do not yield anything like distinct images by reflection off the walls of
clouds; all UFO explanations invoking such optical absurdities are unreason-
able. It might be added that Menzel has repeatedly erred in referring to
sundogs, i.e., parhelia, as resulting from "reflection", since that familiar
optical effect is caused by ice-crystal refraction.) In asserting such a
meteorological explanation as was issued by the RAAF intelligence office,
little evidence of scientific knowledge was exhibited, unless that office
felt that the essential features of the Brownings' account had to be simply
disregarded as unreliable. Yet the interrogating RAAF officer, Wg . Cdr.
Waller, evidently had no such inclination to disregard these witnesses'
description of their observations, nor do I.